Web Governance is a system for managing an online presence in a controlled & orderly way. The principal benefit of good Web Governance is that it delivers operational certainty and stability.

That is, when you get governance right you can take it for granted that operations will (or should) always work, ie that the right people will follow the right processes to complete the right tasks in a timely manner.

For example, this might include scanning the website at regular intervals to find and fix broken links, mis-spellings, out-of-date content, etc.

Good governance allows you to stop worrying about administrative issues (eg who does what) and instead focus attention on pursuing online goals.

Web Governance 101

Any system of Web Governance is composed of 4 categories of Activity (each of which can be broken down into many distinct subtasks).
These categories are:

Leadership

Development

Maintenance

Infrastructure

These Activities (& their component subtasks) are non-negotiable. They must happen if you are to maintain a high quality website.

Scale

Size: How much effort does it take to manage all the content & services you have online?

Engagement: How much interaction do you get, eg do you attract a lot of traffic on your site, or a lot of commentary and feedback?

Complexity: How intricate is the technology you use to deliver your online services, eg does it include eCommerce, etc?

The reason these 3 measures are chosen is because of the direct effect they have on your operational burden.

That is, as an online presence gets bigger (in size), busier (in engagement) and more intricate (in complexity), each of the 4 Activities of Web Governance becomes more detailed & occurs more frequently.

To cope with this burden, essential Resources like manpower, tools, budgeting & more must expand and be professionally organised.

Thus, you see there is a direct link between the parameters of Scale and how to invest in & organise Activities & Resources.